


You Know, We've All Got Battle Scars

by Spooberdem (orphan_account)



Category: Avengers: Endgame - Fandom, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Post-Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but before, but poor in execution, so I consider this good in concept
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 23:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21188060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Spooberdem
Summary: Both Harley and Peter are broken and lost by Tony's death, and slowly self-destructing as a result.Harley's carving marks into his skin.Peter's off chasing the adrenaline at whatever cost it takes.It ends now.TW FOR IMPLIED/REFERENCED SELF-HARM





	You Know, We've All Got Battle Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Hooo boy this seemed like a better idea at 1am.
> 
> So this could probably be lengthened into a more complete story, and I might do that someday, but I was feeling depressed, wanted angst and I couldn't be bothered to write more than a few thousand words. I'm also feeling a bit guilty for not posting for a while since school started, so I hope this kinda sorta makes up for it. 
> 
> I do my own editing (at five in the morning, good job dumbass) so if you see any errors or stuff that needs to be fixed please tell me in the comments!
> 
> Title from Battle Scars by Paradise Fears, go listen to it.
> 
> Enjoy!

Peter is fucking stupid.

To take on that many guys- _with guns- _was a bad idea, but he went and did it anyway because Peter's not in a mood to learn from mistakes, and he hasn't been for a while. Well, he got the goddamn adrenaline rush he was looking for, but he's also bleeding out at the shoulder too, so.

Standing on the nearest rooftop he could find, Peter tries to assess the wound. Turning his head back far enough to see sends a jolt of pain through him. Definitely a gunshot, and not just a graze, either. With his good ol' Parker luck, there's probably still a bullet lodged in there somewhere. Under the cover of darkness it doesn't look like there's that much blood, but he can feel the suit fabric soaked through. Wonderful.

“Hey Karen, how long would it take to get home?” he asks weakly. It’s cold up here and dammit, he forgot to add the heater in his suit when he redesigned this thing.

“About forty minutes,” the AI replies. Fuck, of course this was the one night he'd decided to venture out further than most. Peter might be able to make it back to his apartment, but he thinks he needs medical attention as soon as he can, plus May's asleep and he doesn't want to wake her up. And tell her that he got himself shot.

“Is there anywhere else I can go? No hospitals.”

“Keener's Garage is fifteen minutes away, but it's 12:13 am, Peter,” Karen warns him. “He might not be awake.” No, he will. If Peter remembers anything about Harley Keener, among other things, it's that he hardly ever sleeps. But does he really want to go there?

At the moment, does he have any other choice?

“Show me the way,” he orders Karen, who lights up a yellow path in his vision through the sprawl of city blocks. Shooting a web to the building across the street, Peter steps off the roof, swinging into the night.

*****

Peter's relationship with Harley Keener is… well, he doesn't know what to call it.

Tony's funeral was the first time they met. Since he wasn't Snapped, Harley was 21 to Peter's 17, but it was still just the two of them in the same age range and so naturally Peter gravitated toward him. Harley was, and still is, the only person who could ever know what Peter's bond with Tony was like, what he was going through. There was just a connection, an understanding. When they both stayed with Pepper and Morgan in the coming week after the funeral, they talked, drank, and eventually drowned their grief in one another. Multiple times. The bruises might be long gone but he can still feel those lips on his, strong arms backing Peter against a wall and running under his shirt after a wreath and the weight of too many memories was pushed out onto a lake.

Peter's seen Harley twice since then, running into him by chance. The first instance resulted in Peter following Harley back to his garage, followed by a very eventful evening and a very noticeable hickey on his neck to have to explain to May. The second became a coffee and a conversation, just to catch up on things, but it was still something.

Afterward, Peter never got Harley's number, social media, nothing. Then autumn hit and both of them returned fully to their everyday lives, Peter with school and Harley with work. He's considered reaching out to Harley again, standing outside the garage after school and debating. He's always liked Harley's company. But he never worked up enough resolve to do anything, and he doesn't know how this next meeting will go.

The garage was built and set up for Harley by Tony after the Snap, using his money, but Harley wanted to keep it simple. His place is a nondescript brick building on a street corner, with the name printed on the sign in block letters. And as Peter suspected, the lights in the back rooms are still on.

One of the windows slides open easily enough, but Peter forgets to jump down with his left hand, not his right since it's his injured side. Instead of landing gracefully, he drops through the window and hits the floor ten feet below like a rock.

“Ouch,” he grumbles, once the pain of jostling the wound has died down. The room Peter finds himself in appears to be a common area, with an open kitchen, a couch and some other furniture. A door to the side connects to Harley's office and the main garage, and another short hallway leads to what Peter remembers is the bathroom and a bedroom. Harley doesn't have a separate apartment, and just lives here.

“What the fuck?” Peter whirls to find Harley staring at him, dressed in a henley and worn jeans with dark grease smears. “Peter?”

“Um, hi,” Peter pulls his mask off, and he really should've prepared something, anything to say so this wouldn't seem so awkward. “I, uh, got shot?” The statement comes out as a question. _D__umbass_. “I got shot, and I need help.”

“Fucking hell,” Harley's wary expression drops, and the knife Peter didn't realize he was holding goes into his back pocket. “Where?”

“Shoulder. I think the bullet's still in there.” There's a numbness along with the molten lava in his arm that's starting to spread. “Can we make this quicker?”

“Alright.” Harley turns towards the bathroom, waving his hand in a 'follow me' gesture.

*****

It's been five months since he's last seen Harley, Peter manages to calculate. Studying him from one of the chairs Harley dragged into the bathroom with them, while he goes through a cabinet, to be honest not much seems to have changed. He's let his hair grow out into messy curls, but other than that Harley's the same. Same vibrant blue eyes, same blondish-brown hair, same- Peter lets his eyes trip downward for a second while Harley's back is turned- same body that Peter remembers trying to map out and memorize every inch of over a series of nights at Pepper's house.

Shaking his head, Peter tries to clear his mind of the memories. He's not here to have sex, though now that he's around Harley again, if things went that way then Peter's not saying he wouldn't enjoy it. No, he's here because finally his recklessness over the last few months or so is making him pay in the biggest way yet so far. Not that he gives a damn about that beyond getting his wound healed.

“Why'd you get shot?” Harley sets bandages and other supplies down on the counter. “Thought your suit was bulletproof?”

“That's the other one.” For what he did tonight, Peter should've been wearing the Iron Spider, but it's stuck charging in his closet at home while he parades around in this new black-and-red one, the one he made a few weeks after the funeral by sneaking into one of the Stark Industries labs when his old suits were unbearable to look at. The ones Tony made for him.

“How many people?”

“Um,” Peter doesn't actually know how many guns he- wrongly- assumed he could win against. “A lot.”

Harley doesn't ask any more questions, though he does give a sort of resigned sigh that Peter doesn't understand, sitting down behind him to get to work. His suit's already wrecked from where the bullet entered, so Peter doesn't object to Harley cutting the material away from his shoulder. In retrospect, Peter realizes that he didn't know if Harley had any training in first aid, but he seems to know what he's doing as he first cleans the wound, then begins the necessary searching for the bullet.

The pain flares up and Peter's shoulder feels like it's on fire, and he almost cries out, but it doesn't last long and soon Harley drops a tiny crumpled piece of metal onto the counter with a pair of tweezers. The stitches are easy after that, and if Peter's careful then with his advanced healing, he'll be fine within a few days.

But Harley's silent as he works, apart from a 'watch out, this is going to hurt' before digging out the bullet, and it's unsettling. Before he'd always talked, done his best to distract Peter if he was upset. Peter glances back at Harley. He's nearly scowling, though Peter hopes it's just from concentrating. There’s an unconscious defensiveness in his posture, too, and Peter recalls the knife he had out earlier. He was wrong. Harley _has _changed, and Peter doesn't know what.

“I'll go get you some clothes,” Harley says finally, bandaging the wound. His words are clipped, quiet.

He leaves, footsteps quiet on the concrete floor, coming back a moment later with a shirt and pants that Peter knows will be too large on him. Harley purposefully turns around, and Peter strips off what's left of his suit. _This at least feels familiar_, he thinks wryly, although the last time he took off his clothing in front of Harley the situation was very different.

Buttoning up the red checkered shirt (thank god Harley was smart and gave him something so Peter wouldn't have to lift his arm) Peter sees Harley's eyes tracking his bare chest in the mirror with what might be a shadow of a smirk on his face. But then Harley looks down and the moment is gone.

“You need to crash here for the night?” he asks, cleaning his hands in the sink.

“Um, yeah. Thanks.” Peter can call May in the morning and tell her he's safe. She won't be happy, but he can't get back to his apartment right now. He walks up beside Harley and reaches to put the bandages away.

“Yep.” Harley's voice is toneless. Peter looks over at him, and that's when he notices.

Harley rolled up his sleeves to wash his hands. Enough that Peter can see the neat red lines going across his wrist and forearm.

*****

Here's the thing: Peter doesn't get scars.

Peter doesn't get scars, which means that lately, on the nights when he can't find fights big enough to give him the rush and the distraction that he wants, _needs_, when he has to turn to the knife, the marks are faded long before May can ever find out.

But Harley doesn't have an advanced healing factor, so every cut is there for Peter to observe. It's not just one or two.

Harley follows Peter's gaze to his arm, where the lines stand out against his pale skin. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath.

“Don't worry about it,” Harley says slowly. “It's nothing.”

“_It's nothing?_” Peter is suddenly angry, angry at Harley for cutting and also angry at himself for being such a fucking hypocrite. “Cutting's not good.” He tries to reach for Harley's arm, but Harley pulls away so Peter only catches his hand. “When did it start?” The scars weren't there the last time Peter saw Harley, at least as far as he can recall, which means that Harley spiraled in the last few months.

_ Well, that makes two of us._

“Started maybe three months ago,” Harley doesn't look at Peter. “And yes, I fucking know it's not good for me. But I'm fine.”

“Then stop.” Why is Peter so protective all of a sudden?

“You think it's that easy?” Harley's voice is tinged with dark amusement, and no, Peter doesn't think it's that easy, because he's tried stopping and it didn't work. He's being irrational, but he can't help himself.

But Harley presses on. “Besides, not all of us have superpowers so we can go chasing after a bigger bad guy every night until we get shot.” Peter freezes. Harley's looking directly at him now, and there's a mix of rage and self-loathing behind his blue eyes that Peter strongly suspects mirrors his own. “What, you thought no one would notice? I watch the news. You're going after anyone you can with no regard for your own safety, and you're just lucky you're not dead yet.”

“No, I-” Peter tries to come up with a defense, but Harley's summed it up perfectly, the truth he doesn't want to hear. “I've been fine before. Tonight was just… an exception.” Harley shakes his head. He's the one holding onto Peter's hand now, keeping him trapped.

“You're putting yourself in bigger danger just for the high, and we both know who caused it. What would Tony say?”

“Tony wouldn't give a fuck,” Peter spits, “because he's _dead_. And you're doing this because of him too, don't you say anything.”

“Well maybe I don't care what I do to myself, but I want to keep whoever's left of him alive!” Peter steps back as the life seems to go out of Harley. “I know it's been a while, but I see what you've been doing on the television almost every day. You’re all that’s left, and you have other people who care about you. I don’t want to see you die.”

“You think I want to see you harming yourself, either?” Peter challenges, though he's still shocked at the high pedestal that Harley holds him on. _You're all that's left. _“You think Tony wants that?” But while Peter reacted with anger to those words just moments before, Harley just looks at him with a certain lifelessness in his expression.

“I guess we'll never know what he thinks, because, like you said, he's dead.”

Peter can't say anything else. Both Harley and himself are broken and lost by Tony's death, and slowly self-destructing as a result. Harley's carving marks into his skin, and Peter's off chasing the adrenaline at whatever cost it takes. For a second there's a familiar spark of anger at Tony for abandoning them both and leaving them to this, but Peter brings himself down from that. He already went through those thoughts a long time ago, and right now he has to come to terms with the fact that there's no one to blame but himself for how he's been coping. He's better than this. He has to be, and not just for his own sake.

“Just, please don't hurt yourself anymore, all right?” Peter puts the words together eventually. “I'm… I'll be here if you ever need it.” He means it. He hasn't tried to seek out Harley for a long time, but it's clear now that both of them need help, a way up, and somebody to help them do that. “Running ourselves into the ground isn't going to bring Tony back, so maybe we can move on.” He holds Harley's hand tighter. “Together, maybe?” This thing that's become their way of life won't be reversed easily, but it's still a step forward.

Harley shudders as if surfacing from a dream, staring at Peter almost uncomprehendingly. But there's something new there now, something positive. Hope. The smallest gestures can mean the greatest things.

“Together?”It's very nearly a whisper.

So Peter leans forward to show him exactly what he means.

His first kiss is chaste, just a quick capturing of Harley's lips with his own before he leans back to study his reaction. It takes a few seconds, but it's like a switch goes off and suddenly Harley's the one kissing him, licking into Peter's mouth, slotting their bodies together so there's no space between them, just heat. Peter reaches a hand up to tug at Harley's curls, eliciting a deep moan from the other boy.

“Fuck,” Harley breathes. “I know it's partially my fault for not bothering to look for you, but don't leave me again.”

“I won't,” Peter promises. This is the Harley he knows. “It's kind of my fault too. I actually came to your garage but I never went inside 'cause I thought it would be awkward or you wouldn't want to see me.”

“Are you kidding?” Harley nips at the soft spot on the underside of Peter's jaw. “Does it _seem_ like I wouldn't want to see you?”

“Hey, I didn't kn- ah,” Peter's cut off as Harley dips his head, sucking a bruise at his collarbone.

“That was a rhetorical question,” he murmurs against Peter's skin. “Also, I know you just got shot, but...” Harley rolls his hips against Peter, and the friction makes him gasp. “Are you okay if we keep going with this?” Peter has to pause for a moment. His shoulder will hurt even more than it already does, but he takes one look at Harley with his pupils blown wide and a smirk on his face, and he knows that he won't say no.

Although it isn’t the first time Peter’s done this dance with Harley, this time around feels like their first. There’s a quiet intensity to it now, some underlying current of hope and companionship and something more than that. And even though there's not much talking after that point until they're both laying side by side, spent and in one another's arms, from the way that Harley touches him, claims him, Peter knows the answer to his question.

_ Together._

**Author's Note:**

> If you somehow enjoyed this, then kudos, comments and bookmarks are welcome! If you thought this was a piece of trash like I do, then please leave **creative** criticism in the comments on what I could work on.
> 
> Also, if you like Parkner, check out my Ao3 page! I have a few more fics up there that are hopefully better than whatever this was.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
